


I Will Never Be The Same

by Pfain Ryder (Cat_Moon)



Category: Quantum Leap
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-27
Updated: 2019-07-27
Packaged: 2020-07-20 16:03:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19994935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Pfain%20Ryder
Summary: A story of love and loss. Sacrifice and reaching for your dreams. The beginning, as told from Al's pov.





	I Will Never Be The Same

**Author's Note:**

> * I Will Never Be The Same, Melissa Etheridge, from the album Yes I Am, 1993. This song couldn't be more perfect for QL, and therefore was used in it's entirety. Story originally published in "Wham Bam Thank You Sam"#4. 1995

_So you walked with me for a while_

_Bared your naked soul_

_And you told me of your plan_

_How you would never let them know..._

We walked along the desert trail for a long time, each of us lost in silent contemplation. Lost. I felt that way sometimes, like I'd fallen through a hole into an alternate reality. Another version of me, one I didn't recognize, kept pace beside my partner, beside Sam Beckett. And God help me, I liked it that way. If that doesn't make much sense, it's not surprising. Nothing much did, these days.

The sun was well on its way toward the horizon, casting golden highlights on the expressive face of the boy wonder. He glowed, for Christ's sake. And it hurt my eyes.

I felt in my pocket for my sunglasses, coming up empty.

"They're demanding things I can't give them again," Sam finally broke the silence, glancing at me briefly. He needed to talk; reluctantly, I needed to listen. We'd been having these little heart-to-hearts in the desert ever since he'd become convinced 'they' were bugging the Project. We never spoke of who 'they' were, and I never tried to assure him otherwise.

"What else is new?" I asked gruffly. The knowledge I lived with every day. It was my job after all, to run interference for Sam. Only it didn't always work. Lately, the natives were getting restless. They wanted proof Sam's time travel theory was more than just that. One thing they've always been short of, is faith. I was just like them...before Sam came along. It was either faith or I was insane. The jury, as it were, was still out. "They always want everything yesterday."

"How can anyone prove something of this magnitude overnight? I think they must overestimate me," he said, a small smile playing around his lips.

If anything, they _under_ estimated him, and we both knew it. It was your only salvation when you gave your dreams to the government and sold your soul to the military. I ought to know.

"Al," Sam began abruptly, "I have to tell you something." He took my hand with a childlike innocence, although he was neither, and led me over to a rock large enough for us to sit on.

His eyes were earnest now, serious, with a touch of the excitement I was used to seeing. "This has to remain between you and me. No one else can find out."

 _I'm one of_ _ **them**_ _, yet you trust me so. Why? What do you see in me?_ A burning desire to know the answer exploded in me, and I wanted to blurt the question.

I just nodded.

"It's about what they really want the Project for, after I get to see my dream. When it's time for them to get what they want out of me."

Ah, so he was thinking ahead. I'd wondered, occasionally. Scientists' biggest liability was that they had a tendency to get so caught up in the excitement of proving their theories, they never thought about the consequences...until it was too late. The military loved scientists.

"What do you think that is?" I asked carefully.

"I'm not asking you to tell me."

"I don't know, I swear," I said firmly, feeling what was left of the sun beating down on me. Defended myself, against them, as I never had before. "They know how close we are, they'd never tell me." Before that, either. It had been a long time since they'd really trusted me. They weren't stupid.

"It doesn't matter. What does is that I've rigged a fail-safe. I won't let the Project be used for war and killing. If anyone except me tries to use the Accelerator, they have to introduce a code into the program. A code only I know. If they don't...it will self-destruct."

Slightly alarmed, I asked for clarification. "What will self- destruct?"

"The program. Any further attempts to tamper with the programming will then result in the destruction of the Accelerator. Just don't be around when that goes," he advised wryly.

I glanced around furtively, even though I knew we were alone. "And you're the only one that knows the code? Do you know what kind of position that puts you in?"

Sam made a dismissive gesture with his hands. "Same one I'm in anyway, as the only one who knows how to build the thing. In any case, they'll never even know the code exists, unless..."

"Is it worth it?" I asked softly, as we stared into each other's eyes. "Really worth it?"

"It's my destiny," Sam said, and I could almost see his soul laid bare. "If I can accomplish some good..."

"If you can't?"

He smiled at me. "It'll have been one hell of an adventure."

_In the morning of the night_

_You cried a long lost child_

_And I tried oh I tried to hold you_

_But you were young_

_And you were wild..._

I lay in the dark, listening to the silence vibrate around me. Waiting for that elusive something that had awakened me to make itself known. When it did, I wished it hadn't. Faintly, through walls that I shouldn't have been able to hear through. It was the sound of pain.

I continued to lay there, contemplating my course of action. Yes, I was afraid to enter that forbidden sanctuary in the dead of night. Afraid I might never want to return. Still, it called to me. _He_ called to me.

As soon as the door separating our quarters slid open, there was only silence. The fake kind, the waiting kind.

"Sam?" I called softly.

No answer except a minute rustling of bed-covers.

Pretending, between us, never worked. I started forward slowly, counting my steps. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed. The mattress gave with my weight, shifting Sam's body closer to mine.

"Al..." The pain in that one word seared me.

I reached out to soothe, my fingers encountering wetness. "It'll work out, I promise."

Sam was the workaholic who'd spend days without sleeping or eating, blind to anything else. The innocent, who could find childlike joy in the simplest things. The hard realist, who'd rigged his own invention with a self-destruct mechanism. The child, crying out in pain... The man was an enigma, a puzzle I wanted to unravel like he'd unraveled the threads of my control, of my reality.

"Here I was afraid they wanted to use the Project for war. Turns out they don't want it at all!" A stifled sob, both of pain and anger. "They don't believe me, they were just humoring me."

"I believe in you," I whispered, my hand somehow sliding down to his neck. God and country fled, only Sam remained.

"Hold me."

I couldn't resist that quiet plea, any more than I could have stopped any of this drama from unfolding.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, me holding Sam, rocking him and repeating empty reassurances. Time was swallowed up in the dark void. We clung to each other, and, in the space of a heartbeat, I fell in love. The knowledge stole the breath from my lungs. Struggling for purchase, I started to pull back.

When I felt his lips on mine, I stopped struggling.

_But I, I will never be the same_

_Oh I, I will never be the same_

_Caught in your eyes_

_Lost in your name_

_I will never be the same..._

I held Sam as he slept, my body still tingling from our union. You're born alone and you die alone, had been my philosophy for years. And in-between, sometimes, if you're lucky, you become one with another, for a brief moment. If I tried I could still remember how it had felt. That ethereal connection which had shaken me to my roots, and changed me forever.

I don't know why it happened, why this one man should affect me the way he did. I only knew it was something I could not deny. When I first saw his name, on the employee list of Starbright, a tingle went through me. I shrugged it off, and I kept on shrugging it off...until the first time I looked into his eyes.

Now, it was he who owned my soul

_Secrets of your life_

_I never wanted for myself_

_But you guarded them like a lie_

_Placed up on the highest shelf..._

Arms tightening around me roused me from my light doze. "Al?" Shy lips nuzzled my neck.

"Feels good," I mumbled, turning over so I could pull Sam more firmly into my arms. "You feel good."

"This feels good?" A serious question.

And right, and as inevitable as breathing... "Yes," I said, and kissed him. I've always been a man of action, rather than words.

"I didn't know you'd...go for anything like this."

"It happened, a couple of times during my checkered past. It was no big deal."

"Is--" Sam cut off abruptly.

Impulsively, I grabbed his chin in my hand. "You're a very big deal to me, Sam."

Sam looked down. "There's...a lot you don't know about me." He sighed. "I like women, but..."

"You've been with men before."

"Only once. At the time, I thought he'd taken advantage of my naivete. Now, I realize he knew what I needed better than I did."

I wondered if he was going to tell me who it was. I considered asking, but I couldn't decide whether I wanted to know or not.

"I'd like to tell you everything." That in itself was like a confession, shared secrets between lovers in the dark. "But not now. Now, I just want you to hold me."

I did as I was bid, wishing the moment would never have to end.

"Al?" Sam's voice was slurred, he was almost asleep. "You know I can't let them take it away from me." The Project, his dream. The obsession that I couldn't quite understand, even though I'd once put flying and the Navy before the love of my life. But that had been before. Before _he_ came into my life.

I nodded, even though he couldn't see it.

"I love you," Sam whispered as he drifted off.

I answered with silence.

_In the morning of the night_

_When I woke to find you gone_

_I knew your distant devil_

_Must be draggin' you along..._

When I woke, I was alone. The digital glow of the clock told me it was 4:00 a.m. And as my eyes rested on the empty spot next to me...

I knew.

By the time the alarm came, I was already pulling on my shirt. I should have known, I kept telling myself as I raced down the corridors towards Main Control. He was stubborn and determined. He'd never let his Project be shut down without a fight. Without a chance. Without a stupid risk, if it came to that.

I did know. Somewhere inside me, I'd known. So why didn't I do something to stop him? The answer to that was simple, too.

I couldn't have.

_And you swore that you were bound for glory_

_And for wanting you had no shame_

_But I loved you_

_And then I lost you_

_And I will never be the same..._

I sat at the desk in my office on the administration level, sipping a black cup of coffee and staring out the window. Sunrise was breaking, casting a pink glow over the desert Sam loved so much. Completely natural, unlike the glow that had lit up the sky a few hours earlier.

At least he'd survived, it wasn't a loss of life I was mourning. Sam was out there, somewhere, starting his great adventure. He'd won after all. But at what price?

And what of me, waiting for Ziggy to lock onto him so I could begin my part of the operation? Out of all the thoughts I could have been thinking, my mind kept going back to the same thing.

Why didn't I tell him I loved him?

And why...why wouldn't it have made a difference?

_...caught in your eyes_

_Lost in your name_

_I will never be the same_

**the end**

4/9/94


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